Thoughts Mindesque - Gareth

A Moral Lesson for Society

nospam@example.com (Gareth) — 2008-09-10T18:28:42Z

Reading here, teachers in south australia complain that they are fed up with having to teach morals and manners to the children of lazy parents who fail to do so themselves. Teachers insist that this is not their job.

In the past, teachers did teach morals and manners to children. So did parents and the rest of society in a three-pronged attack.

The empowerment of children from the 1970s onwards has now shielded them behind such an enormously hypersensitive protective sympathy that parents find themselves walking a tightrope between effective discipline and child abuse.

There is little wonder that parents often give up and stay well clear of dangerous territory. As for the 'rest of society', people know perfectly well that if they are caught disciplining another parent's child for any reason whatsoever the police are likely to descend upon them like Valkyries with dangerous criminal and civil actions looming.

While the teachers are to be sympathised with for their plight, simply thrusting the onus back on parents is misguided and represents a futile game of Handball. The underlying problem must be corrected before anything will change.

Indiginous Doctor's Dubious Claims

nospam@example.com (Gareth) — 2008-08-30T00:26:07Z

Claims made by the Australian Indiginous Doctor's Association as detailed here that the Howard government's interventionist program in the Norther Territory had done immediate and lasting harm to Aborigines must be viewed with serious doubt.

The Aborigines' own failure to solve what are serious and pressing social, personal and health problems along with their inability and/or unwillingness to rise above influences that are dragging them down individually and as a people are glaring and disturbing.

John Howard cannot be blamed for trying to end inertia and start things moving in a direction that may produce beneficial results. As an example, the investigation that publicly identified large scale sex abuse of Aboriginal children may well be an embarrassment to the Aborigines, particularly as it may be difficult to abolish in the short term. Nevertheless, it must be identified and tackled.

It may also seem to Aborigines that white governments are out to get them. Most Australians are aware that this isn't the case. We all want to see improvement in the lives of Aborigines. But we are disturbed about the fact that after more than thirty years of assistance through measures recommended by their own professed champions, not much progress seems to have occurred.

Is "Succeeded At Failing" Fair?

nospam@example.com (Gareth) — 2008-08-22T22:18:26Z

A Victorian police officer is quoted here as stating that the mental health system had failed a young man who accidentally killed a young mother while attempting to commit suicide in his car.

That is a statement that we hear disturbingly often nowadays. But how realistic is it? Does it convey a misleading message. After all, it would be an entirely different thing to say that the mental health system had failed to assist or cure him.

While the difference between the two statements appears slight, it is actually considerable. The difference is that in the first statement, that the mental health system had 'failed' an individual, there is an unmistakable inference that it ought to have succeeded and was remiss in not having done so. In the second statement, that it failed to assist or cure an individual, it is not held responsible.

Just exactly where did we get the idea from that the mental health system ought to be capable of assisting and curing every individual with a mental or personality disorder? At what point in the past was it ever in possession of such a panacea?

Clearly it never has been. The notion that it ought to be nowadays is wishful thinking. It is also a method of shifting blame and responsibility on possibly innocent heads for purely political reasons.

Elastic (Green) Peace

nospam@example.com (Gareth) — 2008-08-14T22:25:13Z

How long is a piece of string? It's about as long as a piece of elastic can be stretched without breaking. At what point will it break? Who knows?

That is why precisely why the definition of peace must not be elastic.

Reading here today, Greenpeace activists are happy with the light fines they received in a Brisbane court for painting anti-coal slogans on coal-ships. They stated that their peaceful message had been effective in highlighting potential dangers to the environment.

But is that form of protest really peaceful?

At a time when society grapples vainly with out-of-control graffiti vandalism is it reasonable to define the defacement of someone else's property as an act of peace? Is that a responsible message to transmit to the community from an organisation supposedly committed to noble outcomes.

There is a good case for suggesting that such a claim by such an organisation amounts to giving defacto permission to every idiot with a bee in their bonnet no matter how foolhardy or unintelligent to go right ahead and paint possibly offensive signs and slogans wherever they wish.

It's true that enlightened individuals can pick the difference between issues and discern that an action may be appropriate in some cases but not in others.

But shall we count among them the destructive idiots who steal around in darkness defacing our valuable property with graffiti tags? Can we rely on them to sensibly interpret this message from Greenpeace?

Housing Trust Disaster Families

nospam@example.com (Gareth) — 2008-06-24T06:21:51Z

The news that South Australian police today removed and hospitalised six children from a state housing trust home that sometimes holds 21 people comes as no surprise to the majority of citizens. We know perfectly well that such homes exist. We view the charging of the mother with criminal neglect as a positive step.

Families and Communities Minister Jay Weatherill commented that it is not the responsibility solely of child protection agencies to protect the children of such families but is rather everyone's responsibility including neighbors and the wider community. That statement will strike a very raw nerve with a great many citizens who are sick to death of having politically convenient arguments thrust in their faces.

The average parent does a good job of raising their own children under what are increasingly difficult circumstances. They personally do far better than to have a dozen children who go unclothed, unwashed and unfed. They know perfectly well that the more responsibility they accept on behalf of what they regard as 'ferral' families, the more those families will neglect their own responsibilities, leaving it to someone else to solve their problems and meet their obligations for them. The average parent knows also what is even worse, that helping those disaster families will without doubt cause them grow and multiply, and that they are a primary source of trouble and criminal behaviour.

We are told that crime is a community problem and it has to be solved within the community. The only possible interpretation of that statement we can ascribe any common sense to whatsoever is that crime is largely a function of certain individuals within certain types of micro-communities.

We want to know why it is then, that we are being told we must act in a fashion that will encourage the growth and multiplication of micro-communities that are well known to be breeding grounds for criminal offenders.

Politicians such as Jay Weatherill are trying to have it both ways. Either we are working to eliminate conditions under which offending becomes prevalent or we are not. Insisting that we ought to act in a fashion that that encourages those conditions to grown and multiply exposes their government's approach to crime control as hare-brained.

If that government truly believes their own spin about the origins of crime they will spare nothing whatsoever in direct intervention to prevent disaster families from growing, thriving and perpetuation the cycle of child abuse. They have flagged the problem. They must now provide strong, decisive leadership to stamp it out or they must shut up.

Bare Facts About Nude Children Art

nospam@example.com (Gareth) — 2008-06-03T06:46:21Z

There is one thing that you can guarantee about an angry bull - there will be no shortage of people who just can't resist waving a red flag at it. Likewise, many passers-by have a compulsion to tease a savage dog that barks threateningly behind a fence. Before they do so the antagonists ought to make certain that the bulls and dogs can't possibly reach them and tear them to shreds.

It is not hard to accept the viewpoint of artists who have taken nude photographs of underage children and wish to display them. Artists are known for challenging the way that things are normally seen by humans, then presenting them in a different light. To an artist no subject is barred.

However, from the non-artists viewpoint, there is no subject whatsoever that absolutely must be explored and exhibited or else the sky will fall down.

Artists explore particular subjects by choice. They may call it inspiration, but the idea that personal preference plays no part in the flavour of their creative juices is a little hard to swallow.

Consequently, it is impossible to imagine why artists need to display nude kiddie photos. There is a myriad of other subjects available for them to indulge their creativity. Nude children as a topic crosses the border into dangerous territory of social, political and legal hypersensitivity.

When artists ignore that fact and wave their photographs tauntingly for all to see we are entitled to question exactly which art is being pursued. Is it the art of taking photographs or the art of thumbing one's nose at authority using photograpic artwork as a shield?

If it is the latter, when these brazen stirrers find themselves gored, bitten and slung in jail we can applaud them as performing artists who fell from the trapeze while attempting a feat that was just too daring.

We may not laud their photographic artistry with quite so much enthusiasm. Not because it isn't art, but because their pursuit of it as art irresponsibly confuses an issue that at this point in time requires total clarity in order to eradicate a social travesty.

Gadgets Do Only Half A Job

nospam@example.com (Gareth) — 2008-05-21T05:08:18Z

South Australian premier Mike Rann is investigating FBI gadgetry for use in the war against crime. Fair enough. Every bit helps. But we get a strong idea that SA police know who the offenders are anyway. They have been arrested and released again countless times.

Gadgets may help to catch them in the act but to what avail? The bottom line on crime control is that only the sending of a pointed message to the community through very stiff penalites, particularly for unprovoked crimes of hostility, violence or property destruction, will achieve anything worthwhile. Without that, catching offenders (time and time again!) is meaningless. The purchase of gadgetry will simply amount to more illusory showmanship on the part of a government that is unwilling to act proportionately to its talk.

Cabbies Hit Back

nospam@example.com (Gareth) — 2008-05-19T20:06:22Z

Taxi drivers are striking because another cabbie was bashed in Adelaide yesterday. Good on them!

It is clear that a lot of people are cynical about taxi drivers. However, that only serves to increase the amount of violence against them, since it is considered less of an offence to bash someone who is 'on the nose'. That in turn will make it impossible to get more responsible individuals to become cabbies. The public cannot win like that.

Violent crimes are getting out of control. They are all too often committed by people with long histories of similar offences, released on the ridiculous basis that if they are gradually bashing people less often then their rehabilitation program is working. Everyone in society needs protecting against these rat-bags, not just cabbies.

Coming In On No Wings (And Prayers Are Banned)

nospam@example.com (Gareth) — 2008-05-12T02:40:46Z

Call me a cynic if you will but I greet the news that China is developing a civil passenger jet company with mirth. 'There's a hole in my bucket' went the humorous song made popular by Harry Belafonte in 1961. The trouble is that my bucket is brand new. It can't be fixed with straw because it's made of plastic. I bought it in the Chinese imports shop for $1.68. Yes, it was cheap. True, I hardly complain that it was nasty. But It seems that almost everything I buy that is made in China lasts for one day if that and then claps out!

How can I do anything but joke that the wings would fall off a Chinese jumbo jet half-way down the runway on it's maiden flight?

Admittedly, the Japanese experience may point to a different outcome. When I was a child a popular expression was 'Jap crap'. In those days everything made in Japan was highly suspect. All of that changed. The Japanese gained a firm foothold in manufacturing through volume production of shoddy goods, then lifted their game. By the mid 'seventies if something was made in Japan it was undoubtedly superior.

Will Chinese production run the same course? Let us hope so if they are going to begin building passenger jets that may fly over my home or yours.

Buswell Failed To Sniff The Political Wind

nospam@example.com (Gareth) — 2008-05-01T04:29:43Z

Western Australia's chair-sniffing Opposition leader Troy Buswell has displayed the behaviour of both a fool and dinosaur. Such actions in the workplace nowadays would earn a man the sack. Why has he not been summarily dismissed by his own party. In allowing him to stay incumbent his colleagues expose themselves as fools equal to him.

Today's public do not want numbskulls such as these for their state government. Would visiting female leaders of state feel comfortable about vacating a chair when he was in the room? Honesty and politics may not go hand in hand but decorum and politics must be inseparable.

Gaming Society's Future

nospam@example.com (Gareth) — 2008-04-29T19:30:55Z

I have just seen a demonstration of the video game Grand Theft Auto IV. It is staggering, not just in detailed simulation of a crowded city but also in the range of highly graphic gratuitous violence it offers the player.

What is really ominous is the fact that it is a multi-player environment. Participants engage in bloody street war against other real humans with highly realistic weaponry. That fact is part of the gamer's mental experience even if it is through a simulation medium. It must be part of the attraction or else neither game producers not players would bother with it.

The original theory was that violence in video games didn't produce externalised destructive behaviour in the real world. It appears that on the strength of that video game producers are unashamedly ramping up violence in games that increasingly duplicate reality.

How can we accept that the point won't be reached where young people begin to lose sight of the line between fantasy and reality? What will be the result of that? Will it ever become necessary to begin shooting on sight lots of young people, both males and females, before they can kill other innocent members of the public because their minds have become so twisted by immersion in irresponsible fantasy that they are extremely dangerous?

That may sound far fetched but I am not so convinced. I find it hard to believe that psychologists employed or at least sponsored by game producers aren't involved in determining the likely effect of these games upon individuals in much the same fashion that doctors were employed by tobacco companies to disprove the harmful health effects of smoking.

Those professionals will no doubt find this new generation of ultra-realistic killing games benignly uninvolved in increasing poor behaviour from young people. As with the tobacco experience their arguments will cleverly disguise the fact that their thrust relies almost entirely on the assassination of proofs by virtue of the inability of any proof to be entirely exclusive, since it can hardly ever be disproven that some other factor might be involved. In other words, they will rely upon mirrors, smokescreens and logical trickery.

I also find it hard to believe that anyone, professional or otherwise, really knows where these highly noxious virtual realities are leading society. But I am sure of one thing. If the effect of them blows up in our faces governments, justice officials, criminologists and other social leaders, still sitting on their hands, will lay the blame totally on the public, insisting that it is a community issue that needs to be solved within (and therefore by) the community.

A Grand Stand Against Excessive Control

nospam@example.com (Gareth) — 2008-04-29T07:15:23Z

Whether or not Victoria Park should have a new grandstand I am unable to say. Neither are the vast majority of South Australians if truth be known. The general public simply doesn't have enough information ready at hand to be sufficiently well informed for it's opinions to be valuable. But what we are painfully clear about is the horrendous extent to which Adelaide has become the 'no development' capital of the western world.

For decades now most proposed developments have been scotched because they were unable to gain planning approval, usually at the local government level. It has become a joke. We are a retarded city and state and we became so at a time when tourism was one possible revenue stream during a dearth of new industries to replace those we were losing.

Planning to perfection in the eyes of a few has cost us all massively. The geniuses with their Master's Degrees took into account everything except the state's economic prosperity.

Local governments are intent on doing their own thing independently of everyone else in the state. They profess to be protecting the interests of their ratepayers. That claim is uncertain, but even if it were, Adelaide cannot be an amalgam of principalities. Each part of it exists for all citizens. Each area council must cater for the needs of all South Australians. That is especially so for the Adelaide City Council.

Consequently, I believe that even if Kevin Foley's temporary grandstand proves not to be the right thing in the end, his action in being determined to ride roughshod over a council that has welched on a development that the majority of South Australians have voted in favour of is to be applauded. Let us hope his government follows through and continues to demolish opposition from the perfectionist 'visionaries' who have turned Adelaide into a sad and sorry backwater.

Criminal Lack Of Justice

nospam@example.com (Gareth) — 2008-04-26T19:48:29Z

Last night in Adelaide yet another police car was rammed in yet another car chase, after being pelted with objects from the car by four occupants fleeing from a liquor store raid.

No matter how cutting-edge innovative and humanistic justice officials may think they are being in giving these individuals chance after chance, they present themselves to the general public as imbeciles and expose public protection as a non-event.

Whether or not they consider that to be an unfair assessment of their efforts and their worth is irrelevant. It remains the right of the public to judge according to their own perception. Efforts by justice officials to change that perception have largely failed. The public mind is not quite so easily programmed. It perceives far more than some professionals give it credit for.

When street crime explodes justice officials blame it on a barrage of social factors without ever considering that failings on their own part may be resulting in unnecessary injury, death and property damage. Social control is a psychological thing. The public must believe in or it is lost. People cannot believe in the pile of rubbish we are currently witnessing.

Neither do we believe the arguments that are being flung in our faces. They are spurious and they amount sophistical reasoning.

They say "crime is a community problem and it has to be solved within the community". That statement is ultimately true, but what should it translate into? Should it mean the public have no right to protection? If so, it amounts to a reasonable argument being used as a clever dodge.

There is a disgusting accusation implicit in that statement. It is this. "You, as a victim of a heinous crime, are a part of a community that tolerates social injustices and inequalities and therefore you have no right to demand the incarceration or severe punishment of the offender who is themself a victim. The sin rests upon your own head".

Therefore, the death of a granny knocked down heavily onto the footpath during a savage bag snatch is her own fault. The government, courts and penal system were under no obligation to protect her against that. Therefore the knifing death of someone's son while he was being robbed of the expensive sneakers he worked for was his own fault. Therefore the brutal abduction and rape of someone's teenage daughter was her own fault etc. We are essentially being told that if inquality is tolerable then so is crime so don't complain, just look in the mirror.

It's not that we can't see the point, but we can also see where they are bending the argument to their own ends.

Each of us as an individual can do only the best we can towards being a decent citizen. None of us can wipe out inequality even if we find it abhorrent. It never escapes us that there are great failings common to people who live on society's bottom level but when we point that out and suggest that they themselves need to change we are rubbished for unfair criticism and told to shut up.

Jails are expensive. It is far cheaper for governments to let offenders out. If they are kept locked away governments can be held directly accountable for that. On the other hand, if a released offender kills or maims someone governments cannot be held directly accountable. It is therefore politically safer for governments to have offenders released even if they pose a danger to innocent and defenceless members of the community.

The public mind isn't stupid. It can gather these things. And it can also gather momentum to hold accountable governments, justice officials and lawyers who hide behind shabby arguments in order to protect and advance their own interests while the public are left at the mercy of dangerous offenders who roam free to threaten lives and property.

Interesting Old Books: Taras Bulba By Nikolai Gogol (1835)

nospam@example.com (Gareth) — 2008-04-07T06:39:05Z

Reading a book like Taras Bulba today is like taking a wild roller-coaster ride back through a time when roller-coasters didn't exist, but the ride of life was every bit as hair-raising and far more dangerous.

This story is an elegantly flambuoyant tale of legendary heroic deeds done by legendary fighting Cossacks for whom death in battle was the only honourable death. These were men who would die willingly alongside a wounded comrade in a vain attempt to save his life, but also men who would slaughter women and children along with men and priests who offended their haughty pride in themselves or their orthodox faith.

Gogol brought his sixteenth century characters to life so vividly that you can almost visualise the arrogant self-worship in their eyes, excited into action by extreme hatred of their enemies. You can almost feel the brave strength and fearless ferocity of these warriors with their sabres and musket-balls flying on the battlefields of the Ukrainian steppes.

The story paints pictures, parhaps larger than life ones, of men living life of thrilling adventure in a time and place when victory in battle decided everything. It is also a clever psychological study of people living at life's extremes.

We are brought to realise that life for the women of these men was far less thrilling and adventuresome . Their cruel lot was to remain at home breeding little warriors, raising them with extreme love and devotion, only to have them slaughtered in combat during early manhood.

The modern reader being more educated in gentle arts cannot help but judge the scenario from the standpoint of today's understanding and be immediately struck by the enormous waste of lives, creative strength and energy these wars amounted to. Granted, we also know that such a judgment is invalid. The people described here could live only according to their time and culture just as we must. It is probable that humans five hundred years from now will arrive at the similar judgements about many of our own passionate struggles and activites.

Racist sentiments spill off the pages giving readers interesting food for thought. On one hand it is not difficult to see why the Cossacks would judge negatively the Jewish usurers and merchants, at least as they are portrayed in this book. The Cossacks hadn't the skills to avoid needing the services of the Jews and might have found themselves at disadvantage. On the other hand, sympathisers with anti-Jewish sentiments would be disinclined to acknowledege or even consider that the Jews being a tiny minority in that society were simply doing what the Cossacks themselves were doing - they made good use of whatever skills they possessed in order to survive. Who can blame them? The cauldron awarded itself the right to call the kettle black on the strength of the fact alone that it was bigger and took might as being right.

The story starts slowly and tentatively much like warriors milling together gathering courage before the start of a battle. It then accelerates and pitches headlong into an exciting drama of roistering and war-craft, reaching it's zenith when Taras Bulba confronts his son who has deserted bith his Cossack heritage and his countrymen after falling in love with the daughter of an enemy chief.

The version of the story I possess was printed in Russia, translated by O A Gorchakov, date unknown.

Taras Bulba is a genuine piece of literary artwork. It is an exciting and highly emotive tale beautifully told.

I rated it 9.4 out of ten.

Neighborhood What????

nospam@example.com (Gareth) — 2008-04-07T04:23:01Z

I was never a believer in Neighborhood Watch programs. I see them as helping to facilitate government cop-outs on crime control. I can see their worth as an adjunct to effective crime control policies. As a substitute, which is what they have tended to become and were always going to become, they are useless.

This month the St Marys (South Australia) Neighborhood Watch newsletter confirmed to me that my assessment is spot on. The front page feature article is a generic spiel about - would you believe - the wearing of seatbelts in cars! It is a mirror of the current advertising campaign. What BS is that? What does that have to do with crime control?

Oh, yes! I see the point alright. Failure to wear seatbelts is a crime because it causes needless deaths. And in response to that I say to the Neighborhood Watch coordinator and the fans of this half-baked club of committee-lovers - Belt Up!

Worthwhile though they may be there are places for road safety articles and Neighborhood Watch newsletters isn't it. These periodicals were initially purported to be dedicated to locals helping to prevent mainstream crimes by keeping a sharp eye out and reporting anything suspicious. Admittedly, the results of that appear to have been dirigible volumes of hot air and little else. Since criminality is highly evolutionary criminals adapt quickly to changes in their environment. The public knew that well from the start. Criminologists and justice officials somehow didn't know it - or chose not to know it.

Perhaps the failure of this program to achieve anything sensible accounts for the complete lack of articles about local heroes and the deeds they have done in helping to curb crimes in the area. That is the sort of content we expect to see. Where is it?

To make matters worse, the remaining three pages contain nothing more than a few pages of generic crime prevention tips and a list of crimes reported in the area last month so tiny that it couldn't possibly reflect the true picture of local crimes.

And here is the final insult. A four page insert crammed full of advertising! Frankly, I found the advertising to be the only worthwhile content in this dismal rag that was stuffed in my letterbox. Since the advertising is clearly paid for and since the main content was nothing whatsoever new, just what exactly is money being raised for?

I know personally of many instances of cars and property being damaged overnight. What does Neighborhood Watch offer in response to that?

Next month's guest speaker at their meeting is from the Adelaide Youth Court. The subject is Juvenile Justice Family Conferencing. That news hints, to me at least, that what I have always suspected is true. That Neighborhood Watch programs are a tool for governments and justice officials to brainwash public minds with their own preferred crime control policies. Those policies are the ones that work for them.